Longest String Chain LeetCode solution in Python

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# Runtime: 123 ms (Top 85.4%) | Memory: 16.81 MB (Top 58.4%)
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class Solution:
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    def longestStrChain(self, words: List[str]) -> int:
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        words.sort(key=len)
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        dic = {}
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        for i in words:
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            dic[i] = 1
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            for j in range(len(i)):
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                # creating words by deleting a letter
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                successor = i[:j] + i[j + 1 :]
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                if successor in dic:
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                    dic[i] = max(dic[i], 1 + dic[successor])
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        res = max(dic.values())
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        return res